Search

The night before the induction Hubby and I were so nervous we stayed up almost the whole night talking, I think we only got about two hours of sleep. At 3:30am I woke up and took a bath, and then we headed for the hospital.

It was so foggy when we left the house that you literally could not see more than a foot in front of the car. I was so terrified that I had to bury my face in my pillow while Hubby drove. Luckily it thinned out as soon as we reached the first major road and was all but gone by the time we were getting on the freeway.

When we got to the city our hospital is located in we stopped at a Denny’s for breakfast. My meal was disgusting and I really didn’t eat anything, but I remember the waitress asked when I was due and when we told her that we were on our way to the hospital to be induced she was SO excited for us.

We arrived at the hospital at 5:45am and signed in. They put us in a room and hooked me up to the monitors. Nolan was doing great and I was having random contractions, most of them very weak. After a very long time (at about 9:30am) the doctor came in and things finally started to happen. I requested that they attempt to manually dilate me using a foley catheter before attempting cervidel because I had done some reasearch and felt that it was safer with an induction. The doctor agreed with my plan and soon the room was filled with doctors and nurses and my naked butt was way up in the air, under a bright light with my feet in stirrups.

Loma Linda is a teaching hospital and so the doctor attempting the procedure was a resident, accompanied by her attending. Of course there were several nurses, student nurses, interns, and a few others who just wanted to see the procedure because it is rare.

I took a deep breath and decided that my dignity was out the window for the rest of this ride anyway so I may as well get used to it.

It took them a long time to get the catheter in place because I was only dilated to 1 when I arrived. The resident tried for a long time but it was the attending who finally got it in place. Once the catheter was in a balloon at the top was filled with saline and the tube was taped to my thigh. I was then told to sit upright, the whole idea being that when the catheter fell out that that meant that I was dilated to 3 and that things would be moving along by then.

I started having some more regular contractions and asked for a birthing ball at that point. Sitting on the birthing ball felt pretty good and Hubby sat behind me and held a heating pad on my back. Not too bad at this point, not bad at all. I filled out the paperwork for my epidural, but opted not to have it placed yet because I wanted to be able to get up and go to the bathroom for awhile longer. (Side note: I had been really worried about pooing on the table and I had meant to use and enema before leaving the house but had forgotten. I asked the nurse about taking one when I first arrived, but she told me not to worry about it. In the end, I ended up going a lot on my own once the contractions kicked in…so I think my body was cleaning out on its own, lol.)

They started the pitocen and things got a bit more intense, but still not too bad. After 30 minutes it was upped and I started to get uncomfortable. I got up and went to the restroom and sat there for a little while, what people say about sitting on the toilet feeling good during labor is true! But they wanted me back on the monitors so I couldn’t stay too long. In fact, they told me that they had to take the birthing ball away as well because they couldn’t get a good tracing on Nolan’s heart while I was on it, so I had to get back in bed. Once I got back in bed all hell broke loose. The contractions were painful beyond words and were coming two minutes apart and every other contraction was double peaking.

I was crying and begging Alex, God, the nurses and everyone who would listen to please make the pain stop. It felt like the worst bowel cramp EVER, plus back pain.

I was begging for the epidural, but of course it took TWO HOURS for the anesthesiologist to come back to the room even though I had been promised over and over again that by filling out the papers ahead of time I was guaranteeing myself no more than a 30 minute wait. The nurse was PISSED to say the least.

And I was so disappointed in myself. I never planned on laboring drug free, but since the catheter had not fallen out yet I thought that I was still less than 3 cm at this point. I was so embarrassed, but F*CK it hurt!!! And this was around noon I think, so I was only about 3 hours in.

The nurse kept offering me Nubain, but I was afraid to take it because I didn’t think it would do anything for the pain – and the pain was SO bad that I was afraid that if I was drugged out of my mind AND in that kind of agony that I would start having panic attacks. But after an hour and a half I couldn’t take it anymore and I finally took the shot. I’m really glad I did because it did help quite a bit, and I’m sure it was the only reason I was able to hold still enough to have the epidural placed.

The epidural was FINALLY placed around 2pm and it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. I felt nothing after that. Not even tightening. Bliss.

Hubby and I took that as an oppertunity to rest up before the next round and we both feel asleep for about an hour.

I was suddenly woken up by my water breaking. I had the epidural in, so I didn’t get to feel the “pop”…I just felt a sudden gush of warm fluid. At first I thought I had peed, but then I remembered that I was catherterized (a second one, in my bladder because of the epidural) and I knew what it was. I excitedly woke Hubby and we called the nurse.

The nurse checked me at that point and I was dilated to 5!!!! I was SO excited! The catheter had still not fallen out, but it turns out that it had somehow become stuck behind Nolan’s head and so the doctor was called in to remove it. My contractions became strong enough to feel through my epidural at this point, but still not strong enough to hurt. Hubby suggested that I use the “boost” button for the epidural, but I wanted to save it for when I *really* needed it later on. I didn’t mind feeling the contractions anyway. Hubby and I settled in to try and sleep some more while we waited.

About 30 minutes later I woke up from a light doze and noticed that Nolan’s heart rhythm sounded funny on the monitor. I woke up Hubby and asked him to come look at the monitor and check. He did and said that he could see that Nolan was having decels, just as he was walking towards the door to call the nurse the doors burst open and a whole team of doctors and nurses ran into the room. Apparently Nolan had been down for awhile before Hubby and I noticed. They tried rolling me from side to side and putting my on oxygen but they couldn’t get his heart rate up for more than a minute or two at a time and he was right on the brink of going into cardiac arrest. The doctors and nurses kept apologizing as they started prepping me for an emergency c-section because they knew I wanted a VBAC. I kept telling them “Hey, get him out SAFE! That’s all I care about!”. They literally RAN with my gurney to the operating room. The poor anesthesiologist was almost in tears because he couldn’t push the spinal through the catheter he had placed for the epidural for some reason and they almost had to put me under…he felt so bad…but it finally went in.

Everyone kept trying to reassure me that Nolan would be alright, but I honestly never had time to get worked up. From the time we noticed he was crashing until he was OUT was about 15 minutes total. Hubby didn’t even make it into the room for the birth. As he was walking in they were holding Nolan up and Hubby got one quick picture before he was handed off to the NICU team. We barely had time to yell “Hello Nolan!” and we didn’t get to touch him and only were allowed a quick peek. We wouldn’t see him again for over two hours. We spent a lot of time looking at the one photo on the digital camera.

Hubby sat with me while they put me back together and even got to watch – he said it was really neat and that he wasn’t grossed out at all by seeing my insides. I’m jealous.

While the doctor was sewing me up he leaned over the curtain and told me that when he had opened me up my uterus was so thin that he could just about see through it and that I should never attempt a VBAC again. I asked if that meant that it would have ruptured and he said not necessarily, but that it wouldn’t be a good idea to risk it again. I asked if it would be safe to get pregnant again and he said that that would be fine. (BTW, Hubby and I have not made up our minds on this one yet – obviously it will depend on finances and such and won’t be for several years if at all.)

We asked to see the placenta. They brought it over in a big blue Tupperware bowl (no kidding, it even had a clear plastic lid!). It was really neat, I’m so glad I asked to see it. They asked if we wanted to keep it (no thanks, though I think its neat when people bury them and such).

They took me to the recovery room and I asked to have my baby brought to me. I had been promised over and over again during my pregnancy that I could have my baby within a half hour if I had to have a c-section. We were told that there were not enough nurses and that in order for him to be brought to me that he and I both had to have a nurse and there was only one. I finally started getting worked up after a few hours and told Hubby to go down to the nursery and just get him. Let them try to stop us, that’s our SON! When Hubby was about to leave to go and get him they finally told us that a nurse would bring him down…on his way to the NICU.

WTF?!

They told us that he was breathing rapidly and his 02 was low. As soon as they handed him to me all of his vital stabilized and he started nursing immediately.

OF COURSE HE WAS BREATHING RAPIDLY! He was ripped out of me and tossed into a plastic crib in a strange, bright place all alone without so much as a pat on the head from mom and dad. Holy hell!

After that everything was great though. We had a huge, beautiful room all to ourselves and Nolan is a fantastic baby and has been since day one. I”m almost afraid to tell anyone how easy he has been, I don’t want to jinx it! ;P

We stayed in the hospital for three nights. They wanted to keep us one more night, but Hubby and I missed the girls too much so we asked to be released and they said that that would be fine.

* I realize this is not as upbeat as it could/should be. As I said, a lot of what went down really bothered me and took awhile to process. Personally, I prefer the montage version of the birth story – it captures all of the beauty without the negatives. But, the positives are that I got to experience labor AND (most importantly) I have a healthy, beautiful son. I’m also happy to be able to write these memories down while they are still fresh in my mind because they are important to remember – for better or worse.

If you’ve made it this far – thanks! I know this was a looonnnng post. ❤

Sorry I am so late at commenting on this post. I didn’t have time to read it when you first wrote it and then spaced it. The story is incredible, although I am glad a natural birth is never in my cards. The contractions sound horrible. I am glad that you got to experience as much of it as you did. I’m even more happy that Nolan is here safe and sound and is growing well.

Thank you for all of these details. I did the same thing and also think it’s important to remember all of the little things. I also had to have an emergency C-section with my son (born 8.5 months ago). When we get pregnant again (which I hope can happen), I would like to try a VBAC. I’m happy that everyone is healthy and happy and that Nolan is a great baby.